Soccer in the fall

Anika and Alexander loved playing in the grass, rolling around. Alexander was actually dribbling the soccer ball a few feet and then he would end up tumbling over the soccer ball and just laugh. It was funny to watch, because the soccer ball came up to his waist.

I love the fall and the beginning of soccer season. Lexi's team played 2 games so far and won. Their game today was cancelled due to that typhoon I blogged about over a week ago. This typhoon hit Taiwan and then took a 180 and came straight towards us. The outer band hit us, a lot of rain and light winds, but nothing significant, thank God. Check out the pattern from this link

http://www.jma.go.jp/en/typh/

Yesterday, I had this conversation with Anika. Anika: Mommy, I want to go outside and play. Me:You can't it's raining outside. Anika: Can you push the button to make it stop raining. I was howling. I finally looked at her and said it doesn't quite work that way, but why don't we work on a puzzle.
Last night John and I had a babysitter and hit the town or should I say base. We went to the Officer's Club for customer appreciation night and then to a BET comedy act. It was funny, but some things, they just shouldn't have gone there. I don't know if any of you have heard of the comedian, Little John, but he was extremely raunchy at times. Funny, but some really inappropriate material. I feel like I need to go to church all day on Sunday! John and I had fun and some good laughs, but ended up leaving before the show ended. What a bunch of sticks in the mud. Actually the show started almost an hour late, so we called our babysitter at 10:00 to see if we could get permission to stay out a half an hour longer, but that was it.
Tomorrow night we are going to Tokyo, Shibuya and Harajuku for some Brazilian Cuisine and people watching. We are meeting our friend, Brian, who lives in San Diego and he is here for a business trip. Brian is married to my dear friend Melanie. We can't wait to see him, we wish Mel and baby Wyatt could have joined us.
John is prepping to go to Denver on Monday for a conference, he'll be gone for a few weeks. We'll miss him, but I plan on using the extra evening quiet time for quilting, since I have fallen out of the loop with quilting.
Have a great weekend!

Anika's Corner

Here are a few things that Anika said in the last few weeks that I wanted to share and also not forget. She made me laugh so hard. Out of the mouths of babes. I love this age.

• (While we were driving on the flight line and a C-130 landed a couple hundred yards off to the side of us) Anika: Wow Mama, there sure are a lot of smokin guns around here! (When the plane landed, smoke surrounded the tires, but the "smokin guns" comment, must have been from AFN and showing the military doing something, they say smoking guns a lot on the Armed Forces Network.
• We had some incredibly strong electrical storms a few weeks ago, this conversation took place between Anika's friend Aiko on the way to preschool, they are both 3. Anika: I don't wike funder. Aiko: Funder is fun that is why they call it funder. (Meaning Thunder, they both actually thought it was called funder.)
• At dinner time, Anika: Mama I don't wike potato. Me: It's not potato, it is a tomato. Anika: Oh, well I don't wike, ah I mean, I don't care for tomato. ( I guess some things I say to Lexi, trickle down through the ranks or maybe it is osmosis)
• I was putting on my running shoes to go to the family workout room. Anika: Mama what's happening to your hair? Me: What do you mean, what's happening to my hair? (My hair was pulled into a ponytail) Anika: It is turning brown like Zander's hair, here, here and here, pointing to my roots. (Thank God I have a highlight appointment already scheduled for next week.)
• Last, but not least. On the way to pre-school. Anika: Mama, why is that man cutting his grass with scissors. Me: What in the world are you talking about Anika? Anika: Wook Mama, over there (and sure enough there was a Japanese man cutting his grass with a small pair of scissors. I wish I had my camera for this one)

I need to do a post on some quirks in the Japanese culture.

Ready, Get Set, Go............

Anika after her first day of school.

Zander got ahold of Anika's hat and backpack and decided to try them out.

.......and the race begins...........Since school began I feel like I am a contestant in the "Amazing Race." I am not complaining, in a sick and demented way I am actually liking getting back into the routine even though it is a crazy, busy time of year. There have been multiple meetings for Lexi's school and then meetings for whatever extracurricular she is involved in.

Most of you won't care about the details, but I know some grandparents and Aunties and Uncles will, otherwise bear with me or scroll through it quickly.

Our schedule goes; Monday's Lexi has Ballet and tap from 4:30-6:00, soccer from 6:00-7:00, every other Monday she has Girl Scouts from 3:30- 5:00. Monday's ballet she just started so she can catch up on tap which she has only taken for one year, the teacher is doing this on her own time, a saint for sure! Tuesday's free, thank God! Although I am volunteering on the MOPS Steering Team, so I have MOPS once a month on Tuesday's. Wednesday's Anika has ballet from 3:30- 4:15, Lexi has ballet from 4:30-6:00 and Missionette's (children's bible study) from 6:40- 8:30, Thursday's tennis from 2:30-3:30, free on Friday's and Saturday's are soccer games in the am. Lexi is also volunteering for Safety Patrol, which means she has to be at school 45 minutes earlier each morning and a little later in the afternoons.

Anika has school M-F and thank God for my friend Lisa, we car pool and switch every other day. Lisa is so sweet and her daughter Aiko or Ai-jan is a good friend to Anika. Lisa is Okinawan, but her father is American and mother is Japanese. Lisa speaks fluent Japanese and helps me out immensely with the Japanese preschool when it come to questions and things that are lost in translation.

Okinawa is an island off the southeast coast of Japan and most Okinawans will clarify they are from Okinawa. Okinawa is a tropical oasis and just gorgeous and populated by friendly easy going people. Okinawa is well known for it's pineapples and they make pretty much anything out of pineapples in Okinawa. The pineapple soda and wine is really tasty. We can't wait to take a hop to Okinawa and have a nice family vacation there. There is a military base there that we can stay on and it is right on the water.

Ellie Returns from the AG Hospital

Some of you may be familiar with the American Girl Store. Lexi's favorite doll is her Itty Bitty Baby Doll named Ellie. Alexis got Ellie when she was a little over a year old for Christmas from Aunt Diane and Uncle Don. Since then she has increased her doll collection, but still loves her Ellie and sleeps with her. A few years back Bitty Bear suffered an amputation, (Bitty Bear is Bitty Babies stuffed animal) after repeatedly sewing his arm back on I sent him to the American Girl Doll Hospital and he came back as good as new, no charge,actually I think he was new.

Sadly a almost a year ago Ellie was struck by tragedy as well, she had a severe tear in her arm as well. Lexi mended her with several bandaids which sufficed until Hurricane Alexander struck and the arm was hanging by a thread. Lexi kept asking me to send Ellie to the hospital, but as many of you know I lack in packaging items up and getting them mailed in a timely manner (Berni your pile is accumulating for Baby Hair, he may be in college by the time you get your package, ha, ha). Finally after months of hounding me I sent Ellie off to the hospital. She came back after a few weeks , with a new torso, (I wonder if I could check myself into the American Girl Hospital and get a new torso, perhaps along the line of a supermodel style) same head and looked as good as new. (Check me in, as good as new, hmmmm!) At the hospital she was cleaned up and most of the scuff marks removed. She arrived home in a hospital gown and cap, hospital id bracelet, a certificate of good health and a note signed by the doctor stating that Ellie could return to normal play when she felt up to it.

The whole thing just cracks me up, doll hospital, who would have thought, but in the same breath, thank God for the hospital, because now Ellie is as good as new and sleeping quite soundly in Lexi's bed each night. I hope Lexi loves Ellie for many more years to come. I for one, do not look forward to the day Lexi puts her on the top shelf in her closet to be forgotten and replaced by something else. That will be a sad day for me.

Welcome back Ellie!

By the way Anika has named her Bitty Baby Ellie and Lexi was not pleased.

Earthquakes or Typhoons, Anyone????

Some of my Japanese friends have told me that "the big one" will be rocking Japan tomorrow, September 13th, according to a famous psychic that predicted 9/11 and some other events. Of course the language barrier doesn't help when I am trying to figure things out, but I think they were referring to Nostradamus. So I Wikipedied Nostradamus and didn't see anything about Japan and "the big one", so who knows.

What I do know is that the Japanese have named the "Great Earthquake, Tokai" and they have a meteorological website that shows you if there are any indicators, which are in the form of crustation anomalies, right now none are observed, so it sounds like we are safe for the moment.

Here is the link http://www.jma.go.jp/en/typh/

I have to say our area has had more earthquakes in last couple of months and some have been enough to frighten us. You would think since I grew up in earthquake country, they wouldn't bother me so much, but they do. Last month during lunchtime we had a small earthquake according to the Richter Scale, a 4.8 that felt like a 6.5 with the type of earthquake it was. I had a few pans fall off the shelves that were above the washer and dryer. Anika and Alexander were eating their lunch and I was talking to the housing office and just stopped talking and tried not to panic and determine whether this was an earthquake that was get under the table worthy. Anika looked at me and said,"The house is breaking Mama, the house is breaking!"

At least having many small earthquakes relieves the pressure from the fault lines. Apparently there are four tectonic plates that come together directly underneath Japan and then you have Mt. Fuji, our beautiful dormant volcano that we can see from base on a clear day, which john and I plan on climbing next summer.

We also have our first Typhoon of the year headed straight for us and it is very strong at the moment, typhoon Sinlaku. By this time last year we had at least 3 or 4 typhoons, so we have been pretty lucky. You can also check on the location of the typhoon on the above link.

So I guess either an earthquake or typhoon are going to get us, maybe I should call my blog the blog of doom, just kidding. I promise my next post will be uplifting.

Many of you have asked how to put a comment on the blog for the 9/11 piece. It is very easy, you just scroll to the bottom of the story, click on comment and it will open up a window that will show other peoples stories from the comments they left. After you have read the comments, just scroll down to the area that says "leave a comment" and type away, after that you type in the letters you see in the designated window and if you hit anonymous it will allow you to leave your comment. It will show at the top, in green lettering, "comment saved".

Thanks to those that have shared your story, I know it is not easy, but it is important.

I just spent the past hour assembling the single jogging stroller (why push the double, who needs the extra weight while running) and John came home for lunch to make sure it wasn't going to fall apart on me. Assembling things is not my strong point. It is a beautiful day and instead of running in the family workout room, I decided to take advantage of the glorious weather, before the typhoon comes or earthquake. Sianora! Not sure if I spelled that right.

Where were you?

7 Years later I still remember the day of September 11th VERY clearly. We were living in Pateley Bridge, North Yorkshire, England at the time. I spent the morning and afternoon cleaning and left the house to pick Alexis up from pre-school. Back then I usually cleaned with the tv's on throughout the house, but not on this day, unfortunately. As I was waiting for Alexis to be released from school the Yorkshire Mom's were gabbing about, I was the only American and it was a tough crowd to get to know. Most of the Yorkshire Mom's were hardworking farmer's wives, lovely people. but a close knit group.
The women were talking frantically in their Yorkshire Brogue about planes crashing into the Twin Towers in New York, planes crashing into the Pentagon, etc... Finally I couldn't resist, I remember very clearly to this day, asking, "What movie is this, it sounds very interesting?"

Everyone has their own story, but I am sure all of you can relate to and imagine the absolute horror I felt when they said it wasn't a movie, it was on the news and happening right now! I recall taking Lexi from school in a daze and hurrying back to the house to call John, this was pre-mandatory cell phones. I called John and he said, "I can't talk to you, I am okay, watch the news." Oh, and BTW the base was locked down indefinitely for incoming and outgoing traffic. We lived off base so it was truly frightening to be alienated from our little bit of America, our safety (I sometimes thought it WAS safer off base away from a potential target) and most importantly my HUSBAND!

Next, I called and woke my Mom up and told her, of course Mom was groggy since it was so early in the morning and like anyone else couldn't quite believe it, then she turned on the news, we watched on the phone in horror as they showed the Shanksville, PA plane crash, I wondered who is next? My Mom and Dad lived in San Marino, California at the time, out skirts of LA. I can't remember, but I believe my Dad was at LAX at the time on his way home or going.

Next, I called my friends in North Yorkshire, Melissa and Missy, I think Lisa was working at the base. Melissa came over and we just watched the news for hours, over and over, waiting for the next attack, wondering if we were next. Finally our husbands could leave work and after they went to bed Melissa came over and we watched the news until 4:00 in the morning.

I hope in my lifetime I never have to go through this again, I hope my children and grandchildren NEVER have to go through that terror of wondering, "Are we next?" At the same time I don't want our children to forget. Lexi is still a bit young to put the fear of terrorism in her, but I want her to know what happened and I don't want the day to be distorted by time and historians writing only what they want us to remember. I do recall crying for at least a week at certain news reports and Lexi would walk into the room and I would shut the tv off quickly. Lexi would ask why I was crying and I just said, "People are not nice sometimes". She was 3, what else can you say?

I have family members that were at ground zero, building 5, helped out for days, became sick from the smoke and whatever else was in the air, they still have nightmares. I know this is not the most uplifting post, but let us NEVER forget what happened to the almost 3000 people that died and where we were at the time.

Please leave a comment on the blog as to where you were and what your thoughts and feelings were. I am curious to hear from you. I want to capture your memories for our children when they are old enough to understand.

Thanks!

Happy Birthday to Dad, Deborah and Pat!

Happy Birthday to my friend in Germany, Deborah, September 7th, Happy birthday to Dad Waskiewicz, September 10th, and Happy Birthday to Uncle Pat, September 11th, we miss all of so you! Sorry, no pics, because of the, "The Great Computer Crash".

Happy Anniversary Allie and Bryan

Happy Anniversary to Allie and Bryan, my sister-in-law and brother who are celebrating their 4th anniversary, today, the 4th of September. We love you guys and are so glad we could spend time with you in Durango. We look forward to seeing you again in Maui in April. Have fun in Newport next weekend:)

Happy Belated Anniversary Uncle Don and Aunt Diane

On August 27th my Uncle Don and Aunt Diane celebrated their 26th wedding anniversary. Congratulations on 26 years of bliss and happiness. We love you guys!

To cut or not too cut?

I have been debating whether to cut Anika's hair, maybe a bob! Sometimes after a day at school it looks a little ratty. It has never been cut! Just a thought.

Don't fence me in---on the other hand please do!

Right before I left for Durango, my dear, sweet husband put up a fence. We have been wanting a fence since we moved here, for a number of reasons. For those of you that have lived on a military base, I am sure you can relate. Yokota Air Base Housing makes everyone tear their fence down before they PCS. Yes, you read that right, they make you remove the fence. Now who doesn't want a fence. I have never spoken to ANYONE on this base who has said, no fence for me please.

In Japan, as on any island, wood is expensive and the fences on base have strict guidelines. They must be 6 feet tall, they can only go out 30 feet from your back step, if you have an end unit they will only approve so many feet off to the side and all fences must be painted the same color, a beautiful brown. Fair enough, the Air Force wants uniformity, I totally agree with uniformity, I have seen a lot of ghetto fences in my life time. A few months ago, a fence was running about $2600, that was if someone put your fence up for you and brings the wood, etc.... John has put up a few fences in his time and didn't mind doing it himself. He loves to build things. I guess what I still don't understand when fences are so costly is, WHY take them down.

We were lucky and one of John's co-workers was PCS'ing to Okinawa so John helped him take his fence down and dig posts out of the ground, rented a truck and hauled the wood over. It was a 15 year old fence so a lot of the wood was damaged. Then we had another friend leaving and they had a stack of fencing wood that was in great condition and there standing fence was in fairly good shape, so John took another fence down.

Approval for the fence took about a month, housing was definitely dragging their feet. We requested to go out 36 feet from the back of the steps and explained in the paper work that their was a giant telephone pole, which is the giant voice box (they have them all over Japan, it sounds like you are in China during the Mao era), a tree and a bush that was in the way from 24 to 34 feet deep. If you are familiar with Japanese Culture, well, rules are rules, never meant to be broken, NEVER! The Japanese lady from housing called and said, "Fence not approved, fence too big". Then I tried to explain about the tree, the bush and the giant voice box (a large speaker that plays the national anthems, screams out tactical exercise routines when the military is playing out defense tactics on the base and screams out any other impending threats of doom, typhoons, attacks, earthquakes, etc... It is really loud and annoying! It scares the kids to death.) I asked the lady if it would be easier to relocate the tree, the bush and the giant telephone pole with the giant voice box, with the giant electrical box attached or we could go out just a few feet more without going into any other yards (apparently my sarcasm was lost in translation). All I got was, "Fence too big". I asked her if she could have an inspector come out so we could show him what the obstructions were and I got, "Fence too big, inspector not approve". I finally handed the phone to John out of frustration, my 10 minute phone call that I received was going nowhere. After a few more phone calls and John's many visits to housing we finally got approval for 36 feet out and 15 feet off to the side of the house.

As John was building the fence I could tell he was really in his element, with his tool belt on and looking very handsome I might add. John had the fence up in about 3 days and we are just loving it.

Now that we have our fence up we are living another life.

Life without fence

• Anika and Alexander would scream and cry to go outside as they looked longingly out the sliding glass door at the other children playing, while I was trying to cook dinner.




• We would find random children around the age of 2 on our back porch, playing with our lighters, metal skewers, etc... no parent to be found!




• Toys stolen, our neighbors bikes were stolen right off their porch.




• Random children attending Anika and Zander's birthday parties and just helping themselves to food.




• No privacy




• Japanese housing inspector informed me one day, I needed to take the white lights off the gazebo, "No Christmas lights allowed after January 7, no Christmas lights." I told him they were decorative lights and that is what we do outdoors in the States. He retorted with,"This is not States, this Yokota Air Force Base!" I just sighed and said, "okay".




• You may not have a vegetable garden, at least that is what the handbook says, although I have seen them in unfenced yards




• When we ate lunch or dinner in the gazebo, random children asked us for some watermelon and other goodies.




• Aghhh, did I mention no privacy!

Life with a Fence

• Alexander and Anika can go outside and play at anytime without me, because they can not escape




• No stolen, no broken toys




• Quiet family dinners and lunches




• Vegetable gardens allowed




• Gazebo lights allowed, because once you have a fence the inspector has no authority over your back yard




• Privacy




• No more dog poop in the backyard, just in the front




• We no longer have to babysit random 1 and 2 year olds that wander the neighborhood for hours alone or with their much more responsible older siblings that are the mature age of 4 or 5




• Nice quiet evenings with John and winning at Phase 10,ha,ha!




• We no longer have to invite the entire 20,000 people on base to BBQ birthday parties.




• Oh and did I mention, privacy

John put the small tv outside so he can watch golf and we hung some of our plates from Mexico that Lexi our artist painted, put some more sod down, the kids now have a swing set and we have made the back garden into our little German oasis, with the exception of the daily Black Hawks that are doing maneuvers and flying 50 feet above our head and of course our friend the Giant Voice Box! Not quite our balcony in Sulz over looking the Black Forest, but we will take what we can get:) Our inspector friend can no longer torment us, at least in the back yard (he still has the front to play with).

The following in parenthesis is a song from the horse camp I used to go to in the summer, "Give me land, lots of land under starry sky above, don't fence me in....." Unless you live on base, please dear God fence me in, all you want!

The video is of the giant voice box with retreat playing and the national Japanese and American anthems, just wanted you to experience how loud it is. My voice sounds really weird, because I had to speak so closely to the mic to be heard. Don't forget to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the blog and pause the music before watching.

Plant Plague

My thriving garden has been struck by the plague, overnight! Nothing has changed, for months the flowers, vines and conifers have been happy! Then one night, boom, some plants died overnight, others were clinging for their lives, some I thought were going to survive are slowly dying. I found a black charcoal-like substance on top of the soil and scrapped it off, pulling out the casualties. from devastating plague. The conifer even took a hit! The marigolds are all dead, the heartiest flower of them all. The back yard is dying too! The sod is slowly dying in certain areas. Everything has been flourishing for months. Is it acid rain, the jet-fuel exhaust or could it just be foul play? Maybe someone taking yard of the month a bit too seriously, just kidding, not that the thought didn't cross my mind for a millisecond! I took some photos, if you have any thoughts please leave them. I can tell you what it is NOT; too much water, miracle grow, insecticide. I think there is a household mutiny going on here, between the computer and loosing the pics (still some hope), flowers, phone, my itouch, my car battery, camera batteries just to name a few.

Ahhhh, but life is still good!